


Back To You

by TheStoryOf14



Series: The War Was Just The Beginning [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, Post-War, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-10
Updated: 2013-10-10
Packaged: 2017-12-29 00:21:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 5,336
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/998633
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheStoryOf14/pseuds/TheStoryOf14
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You promised you'd come back to me. And you came back, but it wasn't for me. You came back for all of the world, but you couldn't even say hi to me.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I do not own any characters created by J.K. Rowling. Full credit goes to her for all situations and information mentioned in any of the 7 books or interviews, etc. as well. However, the storyline of this fanfic is all me and the little voice in my head – and thus, of course, not to be copied by anybody else – that would be stealing my creativity, my ideas – and not very nice

It had been three years now. Three years since they had returned from their quest. Three years since the living hell that they were forced to call their present had ended. Three years since she thought that maybe, finally, everything would be alright now. That her family would get the peace they needed so much now. That he would do as he promised, come back for her.

But he never did. The world had destroyed the boy inside of him, and had taken the man she loved along. Her brother managed it. He managed to rebuild a life, as normal as he could ever have dreamed of. He even managed to finally ask the girl, no, woman, he had so obviously been in love with for the past 7 years, out. But he couldn't anymore. He was there for his godson. He was there for his job. He was there for her family. He was there for the world.

But somehow, after all those days of being there, he just couldn't manage to be there for her. He was nice, he was friendly, he was there – but he was never there for her.

Her mum was busy with all the expansions of the family. And after all those years of being 'the only daughter' it felt nice not to be needed, checked on, taken into account all the time. But somehow she felt like her mum wouldn't really miss her anymore. She had other daughters now, new people that she could look after. She didn't need her anymore.

Her dad was working, helping to rebuild a world that he hoped would turn out for the better. A world that would, hopefully, never again return to the ashes it had almost destroyed itself to. And when he got home, after a day of working, asking, ordering, being needed, he just couldn't be needed by her anymore. He was a grandfather now. He had responsibilities to attend to. And those usually didn't include her. She wasn't his little girl anymore.

Her brothers were living, living!, the life they had all hoped for, with or without the girls, the women, the friends, the jobs they had hoped for. They had moved on. They didn't pay attention to their little sister anymore. And she wasn't their little sister anymore. She still needed them – but she couldn't be their little sister anymore. And they couldn't be her big brothers anymore. So they lived, they were living, and she stayed behind.

Somehow, she had paused her life until he came back to her – but when he came back, it wasn't to her, for her. And now she couldn't unpause her life – a life that was supposed to begin now. But she never even started. It was as if she had heard someone call 'GO!', but her feet refused to run together with the rest of the world. And they kept on refusing to do so. And they would keep on refusing to do so. Until he came back to her. But he never did. And now she was stuck, watching everybody elses backs, running far ahead of her.

And then she ran into some boy she had thought she would never see again. Just another boy who, so she thought, had long since moved on. And he had. But he still cared. And he offered her a way out. A way to, finally, get away from it all.

He knew she played. And he knew she was good at it – really good. And he happened to know a team, an unknown one, that needed a Chaser. A team that no one had ever heard of, in a city that nobody knew of. To play for them, she would have to leave everything behind. A thought that had never sounded as appealing as it did right now.

\- - -

It had been three years. Three years since they came back. Three years since he thought that maybe, if he was lucky, he would finally be able to live now. To just live, be normal, be him. But luck had never before been on his side when it came to things such as this. And luck decided it didn't agree then either. So he came home, and couldn't say anything. He watched his best friends be happy. He watched her being happy for everybody who had survived. But he only watched.

It was as if he had become too tired to do anything but watch. Watch how all his friends, all his family, all his surroundings, all moved on. And he just watched, too tired to do anything else. Too tired to try and do the same. Too tired to find out what it was like, just living. Not being chased every other day, not having a mad man attempting to murder you every two weeks. Too tired to live up to his promise.

He watched as the people around him re-build there world. The world he would have died for. The world he had died for. Perhaps it was that. Perhaps, when he was dead, he had lost something. The voice inside of him that had always been screaming at him. Telling him to move forward, to get on with it, to never stop. That voice had gone, and he didn't know what to do without it.

So he went along with it. When his best friend tried to become an Auror, he did the same. When he got accepted he went to the trainings. When he was done training he went into the field. When the last traces of what had almost happened were disposed of, he moved on to smaller crimes. When he was asked for advice on how to make sure nothing like that ever happened again, he offered it.

And all that time, those three long years, he felt as if he was watching.

He was watching as so many of his friends got engaged. He was watching as they said yes. He was watching as they became father and mother, uncle and aunt, godfather and godmother. He was watching as they grew together. He was watching as his godson grew up. He was watching as the boy asked who and where his parents were. He was watching as she just lived on.

But he couldn't live anymore. He didn't know how to. He knew that, once up on a time, he did know. He was sure he had a plan back then. Back before he died. But somehow he couldn't remember. He couldn't remember how to live.

So he just was. He was there, but not really.

And then, one day, he was sitting in his office, wondering how three years had managed to slip past, and wondering why he hadn't noticed - wondering how nobody had seen that he hadn't noticed, when suddenly the door flew open, and his best friend stormed in. He looked at him, waiting for whatever it was that had him running through the ministry.

He heard one sentence, only 3 words, and it was as if he finally woke up.

"Ginny's gone."


	2. Chapter 2

With the air blowing through her hair like this, she almost felt as if she were already flying. She wasn't, though. She was listening to the strategy plans that the team captain was reading to them, somehow reminded of her brothers' stories about Oliver Wood. Being forced to get up at 5 a.m. was nothing out of the ordinary, and playing in down right blizzards seemed to happen every other week. And then to say she had once thought the weather at Hogwarts could be a bit rough.

But it was nice, being on her own for once. Not being alone in a crowd she longed to fit in with, but being on her own in a country she had never even thought about setting foot in. And it was true, nobody had ever heard of this town or this team. Most people back home would probably have been quite proud of themselves if they could tell you that it was somewhere north.

Well, it was north. There was this urban legend going around, that you couldn't play Quiditch any time around Christmas – too much chance you might fly into a jolly old man dressed in red… The fact that snow blizzards were, apparently, even worse than the usual ones, could of course have something to do with it too.

But she honestly couldn't make herself care.

She had done it.

She had finally found a way to move on – not from him, no, she didn't think she would ever be able to do that. But from standing still, from being unable to move forward. That was something she had definitely done now.

With a sigh she remembered the conversation she had had with Luna, one of her best friends, about it. She still wasn't sure if it was really a smart thing to do, just move away. Wasnt she supposed to face it, him, and get it over with? But then again – hadn't she been doing that for three years now? And look where it got her. In the end, it was best if she just went, without telling anybody. That way they wouldn't try to stop her, they wouldn't act worried, they wouldn't have to lose time over it. It was best for her, and for once they would just have to accept that. She was going, the only question was when and how.

In the end she just wrote a letter to each of her brothers, telling them that she had been offered a job abroad and that she had taken it. She didn't say where she went, just that she could be reached by owl. And that she wanted them to enjoy their new families, and their new lifes. And that she would come home when she felt like it, so she didn't want to hear that they were looking for her.

She wrote the same letter to her parents, but added a note for her mother, explaining the real reason why she had to go – but not before she chained a charm to the note that made it impossible to share the content of it with anybody else. It was a variation on the spell that made the Fidelius charm impossible to talk about, Luna had come up with that during the summer before their seventh year. She felt she needed to tell the truth to someone other than Luna, but she couldn't risk that truth to find it's way to the subject. Even Luna had to swear she would never talk about it with anybody before she told her what was bothering her.

And now she was here. And although she knew running away wouldn't help forever, it worked just fine right now. She wasn't reminded of him here, there were no rooms she could hardly walk into because of the memories. She didn't have to hear the stories about him here, what he had done today, how there would be yet another party in his honor. He hardly ever went to any of them, but that was just part of what made her love him, so it didn't help a bit either. She knew she would have to go back eventually, face him, face what she, somehow, still felt, but...

Back home, she could never have escaped him, but here there was only the wind, blowing in her face, taking her with it.

\- - -

She had written everybody a letter. Everybody but him. He wondered how it had come to this. How they had grown so far apart. How he had become just someone she used to know, once upon a time. Someone not even worth saying goodbye to.

Nobody knew where she had gone. He had a feeling Mrs Weasley knew more than she led them to belief, but when he asked her about him, she said that she didn't know anything that could help them find her.

Because they would find her. They had to. They had to bring her home, they needed a chance to at least say goodbye, not just have it written to them. But she seemed to have disappeared without a trace. Nobody knew where she was, nobody had seen her, nobody even knew that she had been planning on going away. Only Luna said she wasn't surprised, that it was bound to happen once – but when they asked her why she thought that, all she could say was that it was obvious.

Only, apparently, it wasn't. Because nobody knew why she would have wanted to leave. Nobody knew why she hadn't ever said something about it. But then they realized that, really, she hadn't said anything. Not for over a year. Somehow nobody had realized, they all had their own lifes. But now they suddenly wondered if she had too?

And all he could think was: "Why did she go? Why did she leave? When is she coming back to us – to me? Will she come back to me?"


	3. Chapter 3

It had been eight months now. Eight months since she had seen any of her family, any of her friends, him. Well – she had seen him – even here his fame was unbelievable. Even here some of her team mates had a poster of him in their lockers. But she wasn't bothered by it. After all, what he did or didn't do, had long ceased to be of interest to her. And it wasn't as if she even truly cared that much for him anymore. Getting away from him had definitely been one of the best things she had ever done. The fact that sometimes, when she was lying in her bed on her own thinking of home, she couldn't help but wish that he were there had nothing to do with that. She was finally living again, finally able to run together with everybody else.

It had been eight months now. Eight months of training 6 days out of 7, and sleeping the last day away. Eight months of doing nothing but flying, trying to be faster, smarter, better than the other girls in her team. Eight months in which their team had finally begun to win their games, instead of being booed off the field. Eight months of working together with people she had genuinely begun to like. Eight months of considerable peace.

And now it had happened: they had won their competition and they had been asked to play a friendly match with the Holly Harpies. A team she had dreamed of joining since she was little more than 8 and wasn't allowed to play Quiditch with her brothers because she was a girl, and could get hurt more easily than them. But this team proved them wrong. They were an all-girls team, but they constantly kicked the all-mens teams' asses. And now they would be playing against them.

And part of her couldn't be happier that she got this chance. That she finally would be allowed to play against some of her heroes, the women she had looked up since forever.  
But part of her was afraid. Afraid of what international press, and this would get international press, she was sure of it, would do to her hide-and-seek game. Afraid that maybe one of her brothers, or one of her friends, or anybody who knew of her disappearance would see her picture, or her name mentioned in the list of players. Afraid that they would finally find out where she was. Afraid to be found. And afraid to go undiscovered.

So she played, and she played well. The whole team did actually, because they didn't lose. The Hollies caught the snitch, but she had noticed that their seeker was about to catch it, and managed to score one last time. And that last time meant that the game ended with a tie: 390-390. The Hollies' keeper may have been a spare, but she had proven herself, and the manager of the Hollies proved herself impressed. So much even so, that she asked her to consider transferring to them.

She knew she shouldn't even have been considering it, but she missed her home. She missed the weather, she missed her mum's food, she missed her brothers' jokes and bickering, she missed home. And at the same time she knew that she couldn't go home, she shouldn't. There was a reason for her leaving, and there wasn't one for her returning. But still – she missed home.

She didn't tell the team about their offer, she wasn't ready to hear their advice yet. But word got out, and before she knew it, her teammates were asking her the question she herself didn't even know the answer to: was it true, would she be going, was she going back home?

It wasn't until the day of the deadline that she decide however, and as she wrote down her answer, she couldn't help but wonder - what would everybody say?

\- - -

It had been eight months. Eight months since he'd seen her, eight months since his best friend had stormed into that office, eight months in which he couldn't think of anything but one question: "Why didn't I tell her how I felt?". Eight months that had changed nothing in his life, but had given new homes, new children, new friends, new happiness, new sadness to all of his friends. Eight months where he wasn't even watching anymore. It hurt too much to see how everybody had moved forward, even further away from where he was still standing, his back to a future he couldn't see, searching his past for a sign that showed she would leave.

It had been eight months now. Eight months in which he went to work, he had dinner at the Burrow, he visited Teddy, he laughed at jokes, met people, was asked to sign photographs, refused to sign photographs, had lunch with his best friends, was asked to go to many memorials, and – eventually – had to move again. So he went to the Burrow, and didn't wait until he was asked, he made jokes, signed one photograph and swore he would never do it again, and moved. But every once in a while, he would still look back over his shoulder.

But it had been eight months. And it had been three years before that. If she would still have given him a second look eight months ago, his chances were all gone by now. He had ruined it for himself, and he would just have to live with that. But he just wished he'd gotten a chance to at least tell her that.

It was a Sunday morning, and the Prophet had an extra large sports cattern in it. Skipping over the Muggle sports (someone had gotten the brilliant idea to introduce those to wizards – who would have known that so many people would immediately fall in love with them?) One of the Hollie Harpers' chasers was quitting the team because she got pregnant. The team would take a two-months break, and then return with a new chaser. Apparently she was British, and had made quite a name for herself across the ocean, but decided to come back home. He checked when the first match would be – a couple of days after Ron's birthday. Well, at least he now knew what to get him for a present…


	4. Chapter 4

It felt strange, sitting in these dressing rooms, waiting to go play. Weird to know that in the stands, there were probably some persons she knew. Weird to know that they had no idea it was she who would be flying there in half an hour. The manager had suggested to keep her identity a secret, at least until they began the match. Then their names would be called out of course, but if anybody here knew her, they would probably recognise her anyway. Or not, because she doubted that anybody expected her to show up like this, in a place like this.

It had been a year by now, a year since she saw any of her family, any of her friends. A year since she had run away from the boy, the man she knew she would have to face again soon. But not yet. For now, all she had to do was play her best. Show England just who had come back to them. Surprise them all and move on.

Move on.

She hoped she would now finally be able to do so.

As the minutes ticked by, everybody in the room became quiet. It was their first match in 2 months, their first match without their old chaser, and their first match with her. She would have to proof herself, she knew that, and she would. They had to win tonight, and they all knew it. They had been training 16 hours a day for the past 2 months, and if they weren't able to win now, they wouldn't ever be.

The manager smiled at them, before saying that it was time.

One by one they all flew out.

\- - -

It was warm, luckily, even for early march. He hadn't had any trouble getting the tickets – sometimes there really were upsides to being him. But they were little and far between, so he didn't mind taking advantage of it for once. The look on Ron's face when he saw what game exactly they were going to was priceless. Hermione didn't mind not getting a ticket, she said she had been planning on reading some new book anyway.

He could see Luna Lovegood sitting a few tribunes down, he hadn't expected her to be such a Quiditch fan… But she seemed to be having a genuinely good time – he would probably go talk to her when the game was done.

Just then, the players flew out, one by one. As their names were called, he tried to look for their new chaser, wonderous as to who it would be. When the last player came through the doors, he first noticed her hair – it was just as red as hers. Then he noticed that the girl actually looked a bit like her, but he couldn't really see it all that well from here. Just as he found his binoculars he heard –

AND OUR NEW CHASER: GINEVRA WEASLEY!

\- - -

They won! She couldn't believe they actually won! Yes, they all knew they had to, but to win like this? With more than three times their opponents points? And she had scored 7 times! She! On her very first game ever! She had scored for them! The moment they entered their dressing rooms, they began to cheer and hug each other – they had actually done it!

Just as she was walking out of the dressing rooms, ready to go celebrate, she noticed a girl she hadn't seen in over a year.

"Luna! How comes you're here?! What did you think? How did you know I would be here? I'm so glad to see you! I've missed you so much!"

The next thing she knew she was being hugged by the only girl who knew exactly why she had left, the girl who had helped her gather her courage, and who now answered: "You always wanted to play for them…"

The thought that that fact had been enough for one of her best friends to know she would be here made her laugh again, and together they walked to the team, where she introduced Luna to them. As they talked about almost every subject, she noticed Luna never even mentioned one person. When she finally asked her how he was, she couldn't help but smile when she heard that he still stayed over at the Burrow constantly. But when Luna asked her to come home with her, she said that she was going to stay there, party with the team and sleep at their hotel. The thought of facing him now made her too nervous, and she hoped a good night's sleep would help. However, after Luna left it only took her one drink to realise that this bar, this party, although it used to be a dream of hers, was not where she wanted to be right now.

So she paid for her drink, walked out of the bar, into an alley next to it and apparated, still not sure who she was going there for.

\- - -

He couldn't, for the love of him, remember anything of the game. Somehow everything just became blurry after hearing her name. Somehow all he could think was: she came back. She came back and she never even told anyone, just like she didn't tell anyone that she was going to leave.

Ron had been hopping up and off his chair, trying to figure out what he should do. Go to her, go tell his mum, go to her, go to his mums.

But he actually didn't think they should do either of those things. It wasn't their story to tell. If she wanted her family to find out from the Prophet, that was her choice to make. If she wanted to tell her mother herself, that was her choice. There was no way she knew that they were here, so they couldn't do that – it wasn't right.

It took a while, but he finally managed to make Ron see sense. A small reminder of the Boogey Hex she could curse them with if they spoiled her surprise might have helped too, but all that mattered was that they reached a decision. They wouldn't tell anybody.

So they apparated back to the Burrow, trying to come up with a story as to why they didn't know the name of the new chaser.

The moment they entered the house, however, that discussion became irrelevant, because-

"Ginny"


	5. Chapter 5

He actually was here. And he didn't even look a bit surprised. Neither did Ron, actually. And why was everybody smiling at them?

\- - -

She was home. She'd come back. She'd come back for- But no. Not for him. She'd come back for her family. The family he was practically living with. But it didn't matter. She was home.

\- - -

Why was he looking at her like that? Shocked and at the same time not surprised at all, and he just kept looking, and why wouldn't he say anything, and why was everybody so quiet all of a sudden and-

\- - -

Why couldn't he just say something? He had practised the words he would tell her as soon as she got back a hundred times, and now all he could think of was that she must've outgrown him.

And why did she look at him like that, so… Almost curious, as if he was supposed to know something, do something, anything whatsoever. And why didn't he say anything? He could just tell her he was glad she'd come home, or-

\- - -

She couldn't take it much longer. And why was Ron looking at the both of them like that? What was he thinking? What was he thinking? Why wouldn't anybody say something? Why did everybody stay so silent, why-

\- - -

"Oh. Hi. Ginny. Well, I should get going, see you next time." He finally managed to blurt out. The next thing he knew, his feet were carrying him away from there, while his head was screaming at him to go back, to tell her, to let her know, … But his feet won.

He looked over his shoulder and could almost imagine her watching him leave – but she wouldn't.

So he just kept going.

\- - -

He left. Just like that. Without even really saying hello – they hadn't seen each other for a year goddammit! And "hi" was all she got? After a year? No – scratch that – after years of waiting for him to live up to his promise? And then he just left?

She could feel the rage build up, as she thought back at the past four years, four years that were supposed to have gone so differently.

Four years that she had been waiting for him to fulfill his promise, or at least tell her it wouldn't happen.

Four years.

But she'd had it now.

She had, without a doubt, taken more than enough of it and she was sick and tired of just waiting around for him to pull his head out of his-

She stormed out of the door, wand at the ready, and determined to get this over with.

\- - -

He was an idiot.

A complete, utter, clownesque idiot.

He had no problem fighting the world's biggest monster, but he chickened out of telling a girl how he felt.

He should be ashamed of himself.

He didn't even know why he wasn't already returning to the Burrow, until he noticed his feet had (once again) done the thinking for him.

He saw that she was just walking out of the door, and now she saw him, he would man up, he would tell her, he would-

\- - -

"Harry bloody Potter!

Have you gone absolutely bonkers? I haven't seen you in a year and you say hi? HI? That's all I get? That's all that promise was worth?

A promise that you will come back to me, then practically ignore me for three years straight, don't see me for a year and all you have to say for yourself is HI?

I'm waiting for the love of my life to come back from a suicide mission and you say HI?!

I go across the ocean to get over you, and when I come back you say HI?

I see you for the first time in a year and you can't even be bothered to say anything else than hi?!

I've been waiting for four whole years for you to get a grip on yourself and make that damned promise come true and you say HI?

I come back for you and you say HI?

I'm going to hi you, you complete GIT! IDIOT! JERK!"

By now each word added more curses to the ones that were already flying around his head, and his shield was having trouble protecting him from all of them.

And then he realized what she'd just said. Four years. She always said four years. Did that mean that perhaps he wasn't too late – only an even bigger idiot than he already knew he was?

And then he realized what else she'd said – "you came back for me?"

"NO YOU BLITHERING IDIOT, FOR THE WEATHER - OF COURSE I CAME BACK FOR YOU!"

"Then why did you leave?"

"Because you didn't of course! You came back for everyone but me, you were there for everyone but me, and you just ignored me for three years! What did you expect me to do? Keep on waiting like I'd been doing all those years? You wanted space, so you got space, there was a whole freaking ocean between us and you still didn't bother to-

And then he kissed her.

And then she was crying and she couldn't help but lean into him, and he was finally there for her, and he was there, and he was holding her, and she was in his arms, and they were kissing, and she was still crying, and she wanted to say something but she didn't want to leave his arms and he was finally, finally there, and she wanted to kiss him again but she had to know-

"I came back for you. And you didn't even say anything. And I just won-"

"I know."

"And you promised that you'd come back to-"

"I'm sorry, Gin, okay, I'm so, so sorry."

"And you kept on being an idiot, and you never said anything to me and-"

"Ginny, can you please forgive me?"

"And I came back – I came back from across the ocean for you, and you couldn't even come back from your thoughts for me and-"

"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry"

"And I came back. I came back for you."

"So did I. I came back to you."


End file.
